Free Second Earth by Stephen A. Fender Page B

could have
been pulverized bones. Mindful of Shawn’s thoughts on the matter, she decided
in that moment to treat with reverence everything she touched. As she turned her
attention from her feet to Shawn, she could see understanding in his eyes. As
if he had read her thoughts, he nodded solemnly.
       “We’ll be back in less than two hours,
Commander,” Roslyn said as she produced a communication transmitter and tossed
it to Shawn. “Call if you need anything, Skipper.”
       “Will do.”
       “Good luck. Both of you,” Raven said, and
added a relaxed salute. And with that, the carrier made a sharp U-turn in the
street and sped off toward their first destination: one of the schoolhouses
Melissa had located. When the carrier rounded a distant corner and was out of
sight, Shawn turned to Melissa.
       “Where do we go from here?”
       Melissa looked around the desolate street.
Most of the buildings on this block were over five stories tall. Nearly all the
windows had been blown out, and glass glittered in the streets like a river of
diamonds. Several of the façades had large cracks in them, some stretching
nearly the entire height of the structures. Doors were open or smashed, dead
trees were toppled, and the light breeze flowing through the decaying buildings
gave off a slight howling noise that she found oddly disquieting. She exhaled
slowly, not realizing that the breath was punctuated by hesitation.
       “What about you?” Melissa asked hesitantly.
       Shawn scanned the abandoned street, not sure
what he was looking for. “What about me what?”
       Her back was to him as she scanned the
interior of a nearby building through a shattered pane of glass. “You…aren’t
afraid of running into any ghosts, are you?”
       Shawn found himself chuckling, despite the
eeriness of their location. “Well, if we do, that weapon of yours isn’t going
to do anything to dissuade them. I don’t think ghosts are particularly
concerned about bullets.”
       Melissa was silent as she gazed into the
decrepit storefront. It looked like it used to be a department store, with
mannequins lying in haphazard poses of preformed plastic agony. “It’s the
stillness that gets to me, you know? We’re in a city. There should be children
playing, people coming and going, sirens and bells or other such things.”
       Shawn reached out a hand and gently placed
it on her shoulder. She jumped under the contact as she twirled around to face
him. Instinctively, she’d raised a hand to strike at what had caught her
off-guard—a knee-jerk reaction born of her intelligence operative training. All
at once she felt the familiar foolishness she had been encountering nearly
every time she was around the commander. “Sorry, Shawn,” she offered as she
lowered her hand slowly. “I didn’t mean to—”
       He placed his hands on her shoulders. “There
are no such things as ghosts, Melissa.”
       “I know. I know. It’s just…”
       “Creepy?”
       She nodded as she folded her arms across her
chest, as if her core temperature had suddenly become uncomfortable cold. “For
lack of a better term, yes. It’s very creepy.”
       He pursed his lips, then scanned the
buildings around them. “You’ll get no argument from me there. So let’s find
what we came for and get the hell out of here, okay?”
       “Yes. Okay. Very good,” she said as she
followed his gaze nervously.
        He
gave her a tiny shake to bring her focus back on him. “We’re gonna be fine.
You’re gonna be fine. They’re just bones, remember?”
       She huffed and smiled. “You know, I’m a
rated expert in clandestine operations and physics. I hold high marks in mineralogy,
computer operations, diplomacy, and general intelligence procedures.”
       “Diplomacy, huh?” Shawn repeated. “I never
would have guessed it.”
       “Yeah, I do,” she offered with a weak smile,
not catching the sarcasm in his otherwise-warm